At our Ashley prayer meeting on Saturday morning I was thinking about the way it is easy to feel we can do nothing and remembered the verse ”‘Not by might or power but my spirit’ says the Lord” but I couldn’t remember where it came from.
I went home and found it nestling in the book of Zechariah (chapter 4 v 6). I read around the history of the book a little and was struck by what an amazing book of hope it was at a time when the Jewish nation had seen the temple destroyed and many of the people deported to another land. How was the temple and city to be rebuilt by such a powerless group?
Zechariah had a vision of God telling him to get a measuring line (chapter 2) presumably to start the rebuilding as an act of faith. I just picture him standing in the rubble with a tape measure (or equivalent) and with faith and against all the odds acting out the hope by measuring for the new temple and city.
When we sometimes feel we are standing in rubble from our dreams and hopes this could be a book for us. We can rebuild not in our own strength but by God’s spirit working through us and our circumstances. No matter what there is always hope. Sometimes we just have to start rebuilding as an act of faith too
Zechariah is full of powerful images which portray the struggles between hope and despair, destruction and restoration, and good and evil with a strong message that there will always be a way that God’s spirit will overcome. It is easy to get too tied up in the imagery of the book and it is often better just to capture the spirit of what is being said.
The book of Zechariah might be worth a read this week.
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